Robert Lemos

So, your company’s been hit with a denial-of-service (DoS) attack involving a straight-up packet flood. Or, perhaps you’ve been hit by a distributed DoS launched from 10,000 bots controlled by an angry spammer. Or, if you are really (un)lucky, perhaps you got hit with a distributed reflective DoS attack and now need the services of some buzzword-compliant security vendor.

But how many of you have suffered through a denial-of-service attack consisting of, ahem, flying male members? (More after the break, and you know there is no way to make up something like that.)

Apparently that’s what happened in the virtual CNET bureau in Second Life. During an interview with the self-proclaimed virtual-real-estate (”virtual estate”?) millionaire Ailin Graef, the CNET in-world headquarters came under attack by… well, I’ll let CNET News.com’s entertainment reporter, Daniel Terdiman, say it.

“Unfortunately, as the interview was commencing, the event was attacked by a ‘griefer,’ someone intent on disrupting the proceedings,” Terdiman writes in the Q & A posted on News.com. “The griefer managed to assault the CNET theater for 15 minutes with–well, there’s no way to say this delicately–animated flying penises.”

After the attack subsided–about 15 minutes later–Graef asked the proceedings to be moved to her own virtual offices, according to the CNET interview. The griefer managed to attack there as well and actually take down the Second Life server hosting that part of the world’s grid, the article claimed.

Attacks on Second Life are not uncommon. And the world, which appears to also have a large population of role-playing adults dressed in sado-masochistic wear, may not even blink at the pornographic aspects of this attack. Still, it’s not something that you see–or would want to see–every day. Even on the Internet.